Art of Growth, Big Thinking, Customer Perspective Process
It’s not often I ask you to think smaller. Today is one of those days.
You have read everywhere, and rightly so, that one of the chief ways get traction for your brand is to sell people on your purpose, your larger vision. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” I don’t even like breaking out this axiom of enlightened business anymore because it’s become cliche and misused.
Yes, your vision & purpose is key to the success of your brand, but it is not a substitute for clear statements of value. You don’t get off the hook for being clear about what your product does, how it is used, and what the expected outcomes of use are because your purpose is so grand.
A particular area in which I see this plaguing business owners is in what I will call the “transformational service sector.” Think coaches of almost every kind and consultants of every ilk. That includes many of you reading.
And even if it doesn’t, keep reading. Winky face.
Sharing your vision for your customers and the purpose of your work is directional. It helps to catch them up in the flow of your work. But it doesn’t trigger their desire to buy.
People buy when they’re ready. They need to be both ready to buy into your vision and actively looking for a solution to a stumbling block on the path to that vision.
Your job isn’t to provide a straight, newly paved highway to dream life. It’s to anticipate the happy detours and not-so-happy ice storms they’ll have along the way and guide them through. When they’re ready for a happy detour, metaphorically speaking, they’ll be looking for museums to visit, places to eat, and spots to explore. When they run into the not-so-happy ice storms, they’ll be looking for shelter, tire chains, or a tow truck.
If you’re especially observant of your customers, you know exactly when the detours come and when the ice storms will hit. You can then show up when they stop and say…
“Hey! I know you and I know where you’re going. Let me help you with this.”
“This” is what you’re actually selling. And it’s what people actually buy.
Here’s a more concrete example. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I’ve been doing some “research” on online dating strategy. One of the books I’m reading is by the founder of a company called eFlirt Expert. They offer services to help people looking for love online be more efficient and effective.
What they don’t do is try to sell anyone on the idea that buying from them will result in the perfect match or finding a soul mate. Instead, they’ve identified tasks that online daters need help with on the path to doing just that, such as picking which sites to use, building your profile for you, replying to the messages you get, or giving your profile a makeover.
Here’s what that looks like for the customer. He decides he’s had enough of bad blind dates and the bar scene. He’s ready to give the online world a go. First, he has to decide which site to use. Panic (hopefully mild!) ensues. He uses eFlirt Expert’s free dating site evaluation service. Bingo, he signs up for the recommended sites.
Then he starts building his profile and starts searching the site. He doesn’t the get the response he wants immediately. So he remembers that online dating company and goes to see what they have to offer (of course, he’s probably getting an email right about this time to remind him of what they can do for him). Profile building! Yes, that’s what he needs.
With a shiny new profile, he’s getting lots of messages from great potential matches. He wants to make sure he’s answering them properly. So he goes back to that company and signs up for email reply services. If all goes well, he’ll be dating away in no time and, hopefully, finding a relationship.
You tell me. Which is more compelling?
An offer to coach you through the dating process to find your one true love? or
3 distinct offers that deliver 3 specific outcomes?
Boom, as they say.
Before you give me a million and one excuses about why this isn’t a good model for your business, let me give you three questions you will be able to answer that prove otherwise:
- What questions do your clients commonly come to you with in the process of serving them?
- What tasks do your clients commonly need to complete in the process of achieving their goals?
- What frustrations do your clients commonly feel during the process of making progress?
Within the answers to those questions are the seeds of specific service offerings, leveraged programs or products, lead generation tools, blog posts, emails, even Facebook updates or tweets. They’re sign posts on the journey from the moment of readiness to the fulfillment of your shared vision.
Each answer is a potential place to enter the market.
One of the reasons my book, The Art of Earning, has sold so well is that it answers a question that all of my clients have had at one point or another. The Art of Growth is positioned to do the same thing by answering the question, “How can I create a bigger impact with my business but put less energy into it?” Our bestselling products at Kick Start Labs, Website Kick Start and Sales Page Kick Start, address two tasks every entrepreneur in the digital space need to complete: building a website and writing a sales page.
The more specific a task I can help my customers complete, the more likely they are to know that they want it. Not only that, the more likely they are to want it on their own terms, meaning I need to do less to push the product. They will search it out.
That’s not to say that an all-inclusive package can’t be a great product. But it’s not likely to be an easy sell. The thing is, most customers simply don’t believe your 12-week course or your VIP day will put them on the fast-track to achieving your shared vision. Let’s be honest: I don’t care how good you are at what you do and how ready your customers are for change, transformational services–from the technical to the metaphysical–simply take time, growth, and natural progression.
Any one product or service is one step in the right direction. Not a teleporter.
You can build a solid business model on breaking that journey into its natural pieces. Or you can struggle to sell something so grand it’s literally unbelievable.
Hold onto your vision. Sell the steps to it.
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Want a framework for breaking your big ideas into smaller ones that really sell & get better results?
The Customer Perspective Process walks you through exactly that. You’ll learn how to breakdown the many tasks, milestones, and questions your customers will have on their way to reaching your shared vision.
Click here to learn more about The Customer Perspective Process virtual boot camp from Kick Start Labs.
Business Brainstorm, Customer Perspective Process
One of my responsibilities in managing my old Borders store was overseeing merchandising. Each month or so, we’d receive a giant binder full of displays and sign changes to execute. Each display would come with a list of titles we could pull from our store inventory to create the arrangement.
Pulling titles and arranging them was a boring and never-ending process. Luckily, much of the store was merchandised according to the store’s preferences. We could create displays based on local events, timely trends, or staff interests. Those were displays I took real pleasure in dreaming up and managing.
I encouraged my staff to pay attention to the questions people asked and patterns in interest. We took those ideas and applied them to inventory requests and then fresh, store-driven displays. Our goal was to turn the pulse of our customer base into relevant and useful store displays.
It seems needless to say but those displays consistently outsold the merchandising suggestions of our corporate merchandising team. They also reduced our workload by countless hours since they preemptively answered common customer questions.
Merchandising was a key factor in both sales and operations.
So what is merchandising? Despite my experience, I’m no expert. But this is what it means to me:
- Making products visually appealing to the customer.
- Putting like objects together to relate a bigger story or to tie into a trend.
- Creating experiences that naturally lead you towards buying the products involved.
Merchandising is, sadly, a lost art in digital business. What’s truly sad about the lack of merchandising in digital business is that it reflects a lack of true understanding of the customers businesses are serving.
You see, merchandising is all about perspective.
It’s being able to see how other see, feel how others feel, take interest in what others take an interest in.
Merchandising is how you say to your customers, “See, we get it!” It creates a context that connects the customer to her desire.
Merchandising doesn’t just apply to physical products. Merchandising your ideas–especially bold or innovative ideas–can help you gain buy-in (and lead to “buy now!”) much faster than would otherwise be possible.
Faster buy-in means more subscribers, more sales, and less time answering email.
Chris Brogan & Julien Smith write about the importance of using emotion to create connections between your customers and your big ideas in The Impact Equation. Being able to hone in on the emotion your idea generates allows you to use that emotion to create a context around your idea that contrasts your idea from competitive ideas. That’s how you make a bigger impact.
“The goal is to build a bridge between the emotion you want them to experience and how your idea serves that emotion.”
— Chris Brogan & Julien Smith, The Impact Equation
What does merchandising an idea look like?
First, for the sake of this post, we’re going to talk about ideas in a very broad sense. It could be an innovative product that challenges the status quo, it could be a movement you’re leading, it could be a new discovery in your niche, it could be a brand-new formula for success.
1.) Identify the emotional context behind your idea. How do you want people to feel when the encounter your idea (i.e. project, product, movement, discovery, formula)? What other ideas or stories foster that emotion? What’s the “before” emotion, in other words, how do people feel without your idea?
2.) Focus on the visual element of your idea. Do particular colors or images portray the emotion or story around your idea? What environment (home, the great outdoors, fancy restaurant, crunchy coffee shop, etc…) would your customer associate with that emotion or story? Who are the other characters in the story?
3.) Gather related ideas. What ideas inspired you in this new idea? Are you playing with a trend or cultural zeitgeist? What well-known ideas or projects will help people connect with your new idea?
Once you understand the emotional context, visual elements, and related concepts of your idea, you have a loose story that you can create an experience from. That experience could be a well-styled photograph. It could be a reimagining of your brand or personal image. It could be a free event. It might just be the story of your idea told in its full context.
When Seth Godin created The Domino Project, the name he chose was part of the way he merchandised this brave new idea. He wanted to create & publish books that were inherently shareable. He wanted to spread tough questions and fresh ideas the way well-placed dominos cause each other fall in a neat line: effortlessly. The Domino Project was a well-merchandised idea.
When Lululemon created it’s Right as Rain jacket, it chose to harness the story of its Vancouver origins to create a cultural buy in. They identified with the Pacific Northwest dweller who just wanted to stay dry on a daily basis because they lived it. So they used that story to merchandise the idea of the perfect raincoat.
When I created Kick Start Labs, I chose to hone in on the thrill and childlike anticipation of experimenting with a chemistry set and tied it to the traditionally less thrilling idea of experimenting in your business. My goal was to reframe business learning by merchandising in relation to seeing what happens when you combine some volatile chemicals. Safety first, of course.
No doubt, you’re already working at merchandising your ideas. But bringing attention to the full process might mean that your idea goes from being spread at a snail’s pace to setting the world on fire.
Leave a comment to tell me one thing you could do today to improve how your ideas are merchandised.
–PS–
Want more on seeing the world through your customer’s perspective? I’ve got a whole process for that. But first, check out these other posts.
Art of Growth, Business Brainstorm, Customer Perspective Process
Last week, I did an Insight Intensive with Nancy Sherr–a gorgeous and dynamic coach guiding women through transitions and towards a zestful life. I read the copy on her site, I watched her introductory video. I could tell she knew her customer. And suddenly, I did too.
I could imagine all the women who had put so much energy into being the perfect wives to their influential and powerful husbands only to have their 20 year marriages end in divorce. I could see all the women who had put their whole hearts into being perfect mothers only to wonder what to do with their whole hearts when the kids left the nest empty. I could picture all the women who had set aside every shred of their femininity to compete in a masculine world only to feel cold & distant upon retirement or layoff.
Nancy’s work naturally picks up where these transitions leave off. It’s the clearest opportunity and the one that most easily lends itself to an offer. But that’s only one opportunity for her to serve her best clients. She could imagine only serving them at this juncture in time. She could see her clients as static.
Or she could choose to imagine the lives ahead of them. She could choose to hold a vision for her clients as they pursue their zestful lives. And she could choose to create products that serve that growing & evolving vision.
Much of the problem with the way most businesses have chosen to see their ideal client is that it stops at “now.”
You can have one distinct ideal client profile. But that profile doesn’t have to only exist at the point of pain, frustration, or need. No, that profile–that person–has a history. She has unique experiences that have shaped who she is at this moment. She also has a future. She has hopes, dreams, and the day-by-day reality of moving through time.
Innovative businesses hold a vision for their customers. Innovative businesses use their unique insight into their customers’ day-to-day lives to see what tomorrow will look like and create the solutions that meet them at tomorrow and beyond.
“What business a company is in depends, in large part, not on existing customers but who tomorrow’s customers will—and should—be.”
— Michael Schrage, Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?
That is not to say that who your customer is changes. But it is to say that your customers are changing. You have the opportunity to continue to serve them as they progress.
Or you can take a myopic perspective and only sell to them “now.”
Consider the newspapers. Newspaper companies think they’re in the “newspaper” business. So it’s difficult for them to innovate outside the product that people have always wanted from them. They think their customers buy newspapers.
But that’s not at all what their customers buy. Their customers buy “news.” That’s a fundamentally different way to look at the value provided.
So their customers have become people who seldom read things on recycled wood pulp anymore. News customers engage smartphones, tablets, laptops, social media platforms, and countless other sources of news.
The “newspaper” business might be dying but the “news” business–at least the market and demand for news–has never been greater. If newspaper companies forgot the paper part, what innovative solutions could they come up with to not only meet their customers with the reality of today but to lead them to the promise of tomorrow?
What about your industry? Do people actually buy “coaching?” What do they buy instead? Are people actually buying “website design?” What solution are they really seeking? Do your customers care that you’re a wellness coach? What personal change are they willing to put money on?
Knowing the business that you’re really in helps you to see how your customers grow and change beyond the 1-point product or service you’re selling now.
Your customers’ needs change. Their desires evolve. The way they want to interact with you and your community transforms. The way they want to be communicated with shifts.
This can be scary. But it’s really an opportunity.
As your understanding of your customer-through-time evolves, you will see that there are truly countless opportunities for you to meet their changing needs. There are desires & needs that naturally rise to the surface as the people you serve grow. Those desires & needs translate to offers & opportunities, each with its own set of constraints and objectives.
Each time you identify one of these needs, you have the opportunity to layer the messaging, community, and revenue for that new offer on top of your existing offers. And that can lead to big returns in each department.
Seeing your ideal customer as a living, breathing, growing human being means you can see your business as a living, growing, thriving organism instead of a one-trick pony.
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Ready to chart the course for your customer’s journey and a path of growth for your business?
Understanding how your customers grow & change, as well as the ups & downs they’ll have along the way, is a big part of The Customer Perspective Process. You’ll learn to apply your customer’s journey to your business model development, content strategy, and strategic partnership strategy.
Click here to learn about The Customer Perspective Process virtual boot camp from Kick Start Labs.
